Gravity behind male pattern baldness?

As the COVID-19 wave sweeps strongly across the country, including in Tamil Nadu, mental health experts say the pandemic has triggered panic attacks among those who tested positive for the virus, causing bouts of depression and even driving some to the brink of suicide.

According to experts, nervousness, fear of contamination, panic attacks, constant reassurance seeking behaviour, sleep disturbance, excessive worry, feelings of helplessness and probability of an economic slowdown are the major factors leading to depression and anxiety among the people.

Potential job losses, financial burden, uncertainty about the future and fears of running out of food and necessities add to the worries.

Online platforms too have seen a growing number of people seeking help for mental health issues, ranging from anxiety and loneliness to concerns over productivity and job loss since the outbreak of COVID-19.

Director of Institute of Mental Health here, Dr R Purna Chandrika said towards April end about 3,632 calls were received and psychiatric counselling was provided to 2,603 callers.

"We have dedicated services at our centres in the districts and the calls meant for government medical college hospitals are routed to the respective institutions," she said.

Due to heavy virus caseloads, making this city the major contributor to the state's tally, the Greater Chennai Corporation too started a free helpline to help residents cope up with stress during the pandemic.

"From the psychological perspective, we don't find a single human being who is not feeling some degree of stress or anxiety due to coronavirus. The intensity and impact varies from person to person," said Lt Col N T Rajan, director of Chennai-based Mastermind Foundation.

The organisation is involved in free counselling throughout India ever since the first case of the deadly virus was reported in the country.

The foundation's recommendation on not to deploy the vulnerable in the police force, especially those above 50 years and women personnel with children below five years for COVID-19 related duty, was accepted and implemented by the Punjab government.

Psychiatrists feel that further worsening situations could lead to severe mental health issues, even triggering suicidal tendencies.

"Further worsening depression may lead to severe mental health issues and suicidal tendencies," said Dr S Senthil Kumar, a psychiatrist.

However, not all of them require medicines, he added.

"The situation is serious. There should be counselling at three stages--on coping with the virus, how to face it if tested positive and how to face life once treated and discharged from the hospital," Rajan said.

Awareness was of paramount importance, he said and warned the pandemic could cause panic attacks while in hospital or drive them to the brink of suicide.

Tamil Nadu, one of the worst affected states with a virus count in excess of 74,000 as of Friday, has witnessed a few instances of suicides allegedly related to COVID-19.

Hari Singh, owner of popular 'Iruttu Kadai' halwa shop in Tirunelveli, allegedly died by committing suicide on Thursday after being tested positive for COVID-19. He was 80.

Earlier in May, two COVID-19 patients in their 50s allegedly committed suicide in separate instances, at the government hospitals they were admitted to for treatment.

In the city corporation limits, a three-member team comprising a psychiatrist, counsellor and a social worker work for the respective zones.

"We direct certain sections of people like those with withdrawal symptoms and people requiring pills, to visit the doctor at their corporation zonal at a specific time, for medicines," a health worker of the civic body said.

Health platform, Lybrate reported an increase of 180 per cent in online patient consultations related to mental health on its platform between March 1 and June 20 across the country.

The largest increase came from Mumbai and Delhi, followed by Pune, Ahmedabad, Chennai and Bengaluru.

The biggest jump was witnessed in the age group of 25 and 45 years.

Should you let your babies "cry it out" or rush to their side? Researchers have found that leaving an infant to 'cry it out' from birth up to 18 months does not adversely affect their behaviour development or attachment.

The study, published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, found that an infant's development and attachment to their parents is not affected by being left to "cry it out" and can actually decrease the amount of crying and duration.

"Only two previous studies nearly 50 or 20 years ago had investigated whether letting babies 'cry it out' affects babies' development. Our study documents contemporary parenting in the UK and the different approaches to crying used," said the study's researcher Ayten Bilgin from the University of Warwick in the UK.

For the study, the researchers followed 178 infants and their mums over 18 months and repeatedly assessed whether parents intervened immediately when a baby cried or let the baby let it cry out a few times or often.

They found that it made little difference to the baby’s development by 18 months.

The use of parent’s leaving their baby to ‘cry it out’ was assessed via maternal report at term, 3, 6 and 18 months and cry duration at term, 3 and 18 months.

Duration and frequency of fussing and crying was assessed at the same ages with the Crying Pattern Questionnaire.

According to the researchers, how sensitive the mother is in interaction with their baby was video-recorded and rated at 3 and 18 months of age.

Attachment was assessed at 18 months using a gold standard experimental procedure, the strange situation test, which assesses how securely an infant is attached to the major caregiver during separation and reunion episodes.

Behavioural development was assessed by direct observation in play with the mother and during assessment by a psychologist and a parent-report questionnaire at 18 months.

Researchers found that whether contemporary parents respond immediately or leave their infant to cry it out a few times to often makes no difference on the short - or longer term relationship with the mother or the infants behaviour.

This study shows that 2/3 of mum's parent intuitively and learn from their infant, meaning they intervene when they were just born immediately, but as they get older the mother waits a bit to see whether the baby can calm themselves, so babies learn self-regulation.

Washington D.C., May 9: Do the middle age feel much stressful now, and seems to have changed over time, if compared to the life in the 90s? Well, this recent study indicates that it might be true.

The study has signalled to the fact that life may become more stressful majorly for middle-aged people than it was in the 1990s. The researchers reached this analysis even before the novel coronavirus started sweeping the globe.

A team of researchers led by Penn State found that across all ages, there was a slight increase in daily stress in the 2010s compared to the 1990s. But when researchers restricted the sample to people between the ages of 45 and 64, there was a sharp increase in daily stress.

"On average, people reported about 2 percent more stressors in the 2010s compared to people in the past," said David M. Almeida, professor of human development and family studies at Penn State.

"That's around an additional week of stress a year. But what really surprised us is that people at mid-life reported a lot more stressors, about 19 percent more stress in 2010 than in 1990. And that translates to 64 more days of stress a year."

Almeida said the findings were part of a larger project aiming to discover whether health during the middle of Americans' lives has been changing over time.

"Certainly, when you talk to people, they seem to think that daily life is more hectic and less certain these days," Almeida said.

For the study, the researchers collected data from 1,499 adults in 1995 and 782 different adults in 2012.

Almeida said the goal was to study two cohorts of people who were the same age at the time the data was collected but born in different decades. All study participants were interviewed daily for eight consecutive days.

During each daily interview, the researchers asked the participants about their stressful experiences throughout the previous 24 hours.

They asked questions related to arguments with family or friends or feeling overwhelmed at home or work, so and so. The participants were also asked how severe their stress was and whether those stressors were likely to impact other areas of their lives.

"We were able to estimate not only how frequently people experienced stress, but also what those stressors mean to them," Almeida said.

"For example, did this stress affect their finances or their plans for the future. And by having these two cohorts of people, we were able to compare daily stress processes in 1990 with daily stress processes in 2010," Almeida added.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that participants reported significantly more daily stress and lower well-being in the 2010s compared to the 1990s.

Additionally, participants reported a 27 percent increase in the belief that stress would affect their finances and a 17 percent increase in the belief that stress would affect their future plans.

Almeida said he was surprised not that people were more stressed now than in the 90s, but at the age group that was mainly affected.

"We thought that with economic uncertainty, life might be more stressful for younger adults. But we didn't see that. We saw more stress for people at mid-life," Almeida said.

"And maybe that's because they have children who are facing an uncertain job market while also responsible for their own parents. So it's this generational squeeze that's making stress more prevalent for people at mid-life," he concluded.